With all the potential good wind power could do for the carbon economy,
one of the objections hindering its implementation is aesthetic; people
simply don't want massive turbines dotting the landscape and marring
their views. The Dutch founder of London's Solar Botanic Ltd. was
wrestling with that very issue in 2002 when the idea began to blossom:
why not redesign the technology to blend into the natural world?

Founded last year, Solar Botanic's
ambitious goal involves layering existing technologies three-fold into
the natural form of a leaf and producing fake power-producing trees
that individually could power an entire home. Each "nanoleaf" would
incorporate photovoltaics for collecting solar power, thermoelectrics
for converting the sun's heat to electricity, and piezoelectric
nanogenerators in the leaves' petioles (the stalk connecting the leaf
to the branch) that capture the kinetic energy from the wind rustling
the leaves.

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Solar Botanic estimates that a single tree with a canopy 20 feet in
diameter could power an average home, producing about 120,000
kilowatt-hours over two decades. Forests, on the other hand, could
power entire population centers. But a more reasonable deployment
scenario involves greening up parking lots while providing power to
charge electric vehicles or planting the "trees" along highways to
capture the turbulence of passing traffic.